Elton Flatley is remembered for his kicking duel against Jonny Wilkinson in the 2003 World Cup final.

“We’re over it now, kind of,” he said.

But the Wallabies inside-centre during that famous November night in Sydney almost never made it that far. Or, at least, that’s what he feared.

Five-months earlier Flatley was sent home by Eddie Jones during the mid-years Tests after missing a recovery session the night after he led the Wallabies to a 30-10 victory over Wales in Sydney.

“I got sent home from a tour after a Wales game,” Flatley said. “It was a World Cup year. I went out and had a few beers the night before and missed the recovery session.

“We had to play England the next week and Eddie said, ‘You’re going on the plane, but you’re going north and we’re going south.’ I still remember it.”

Banished from the team, the Wallabies, still without Stephen Larkham, were well-beaten by England in Melbourne and Flatley was left to do some soul-searching.

“I was devastated. It was obviously a World Cup and I wasn’t sure whether I was going to be out of the squad,” Flatley said. “He knew I was gutted. He said, ‘Get home and we’ll out a plan going forward.’

“He was wonderful to me. He gave me a second opportunity and I just trained my guts out and did everything I could to get back in the team, and he got me back in sort of pretty much straight away.

“But I think it was a good lesson for everyone around that time of year.”

Funnily enough, Flatley was later made vice-captain by Jones.

Jeremy Paul tells the story of when George Smith was sprung in the lift in the early hours of the morning coming back from a big night out as Jones woke and went to use the gym.

“So, mate, you’ve got two options,” Jones is said to have said to Smith, “you’re going to get off the piss and lose some weight, or you’re going to stay on the piss and I’m going to flog you.’ As every player said right, ‘I’m going to get off the piss.’  But Jones said, ‘No, mate, I want you to drink. I want you to socialise. I’m just going to flog you.’

“Georgie Smith after every training had to do extra fitness. But this was the guy. He knew socialising was a big part of sport and saw the benefits of camaraderie and bonding.”

“Fairness” was the overarching theme that shone through during The Roar’s interviews with nine former Wallabies, who played under Jones at international level.

While a sense of sadness was expressed about Dave Rennie’s departure, with Flatley saying the New Zealander was a “cool dude” and had his “heart in the right spot”, the overwhelming feeling was one of excitement about Jones’ return.

“To have arguably the world’s best coach at the helm is phenomenal, just huge news,” Stirling Mortlock said. “I think he’s as close as you can be to the complete package.”

Mortlock, who famously scored a runaway intercept try in the World Cup semi-final against the All Blacks, was one of Australia’s most forthright figures last year when he declared the Wallabies could not win the World Cup under Rennie.

His comments came just days after Italy recorded their maiden victory over Australia in Florence and upset figures within the Wallabies set-up.

While Mortlock was not prepared to say the Wallabies were now serious World Cup contenders, he said Rugby Australia had given the national team a chance.

“I felt that way categorically,” he said. “I still feel like it’s a huge task but I’ll certainly temper my view; we’ve got as good a chance as a lot of other tier-one teams now and I know that with Eddie at the helm he will be making sure the Wallabies will be as well prepared as they could possibly ever be, so they’ll give it one hell of a shake.

“I’m not going to put it out there that I now think they’re now going to win, I won’t reverse around that much, but he will give them as good a chance as any.”

Few deny that Rennie was dealt a rough hand. Even before arriving Down Under, the person who employed him, Raelene Castle, resigned as chief executive after losing the confidence of stakeholders.

Australian rugby was still dealing with the fallout from the Israel Folau saga and the equally messy culling of the Western Force.

While COVID-19 almost sent Rugby Australia over the edge financially.

At the same time, Rennie, whose last major trophy was back with the Chiefs in 2013, was having to rebuild the Wallabies after the departures of several household names.

But after three years of moving one step forward and taking another backward, RA chairman Hamish McLennan proactively stepped in by securing Jones’ services for five years.

A horror injury toll raised questions over the Wallabies’ strength and conditioning methods, while equally concerning disciplinary standards on the field dogged Rennie’s side during his three years in charge.

It left the understated, dry Kiwi with a 38 per cent winning record – the lowest of any Wallabies coach (minimum 30 Tests).

‘Australian rugby needs a Justin Langer character’

Matt Dunning said he couldn’t imagine the Wallabies being allowed to get away with murder on the field under Jones.

Dunning, who admitted he had never been spoken to by anyone in his life like Jones, said the Wallabies could use a “Justin Langer character” to shake the side up.

“I think this group needs a little bit of a dominant figure,” Dunning said. “Maybe they need a bit of a Justin Langer character, and you’ll get that with Eddie. Like you’re not going to get someone who’s going to hear sob stories.

“Eddie’s all about accountability, doing your job, working hard, having fun while you do it, and if you stuff up, you put your hand up.”

Langer’s ugly exit from Australian cricket came despite the national men’s side claiming their maiden T20 World Cup and a comprehensive 4-0 Ashes victory in the space of six months.

Dunning did not share the same concerns about Jones’ culture because the current Wallabies side didn’t have world class players in its side like the cricket team.

“JL’s working with the best in the world, [Pat] Cummins, [Steve] Smith, [David] Warner, [Nathan] Lyon; you’re dealing with superstars, and the superstars have the ability to throw you out with the bathwater because they are winning and they’re going to win regardless,” Dunning said.

“But the Wallabies won’t have that. There’s not the characters who are going to be there, and that’s why I reckon he’ll do really well. He’ll do well because people will buy in.

“I thought Eddie was awesome. I’ve never been spoken to by a human-being worse, but it’s different with Eddie. Everything he said was pretty spot on. I worked better with the stick, that worked for me.”

Mat Rogers added: “You’ve got to deliver and if you don’t, you won’t be there. It’s as simple as that. It doesn’t care how good you are.”

‘A master coach’

Wendell Sailor compared Jones to one of the NRL’s master coaches: Wayne Bennett. Sailor said he “would do anything for Edde” and reflected that under Jones, “you wanted to play for him.”

“When I was going through my time out of the game, he still rang to check up on me because he understood I was human,” Sailor said. “Even with my young boy just recently, he was checking in.

“When I was out of the game he’d always text and check how I was and it was good to have that, he didn’t leave me hanging.

Jeremy Paul agreed: “Of all the years that I’ve played, regardless of the result, all you wanted was Eddie turning around and saying, ‘Mate, well done.’ That’s all you wanted. It doesn’t sound like much but that’s everything for a coach-player relationship. You wanted Eddie’s approval because you played for him.”

Both players, as well as Rogers, applauded Rugby Australia for moving on Jones, saying the game needed him.

“Rugby’s dying,” Paul said bluntly. “Mind you, there’s a bit of interest now.  Eddie Jones, I reckon he’s going to work them into shape.

“Strategically I thought this is actually one of the smartest issues Rugby Australia’s made for a long time.”

Sailor added: “I’m telling you now, I promise you, the Wallabies, whoever decided to do this on the board, they’ve got the right guy.”

Rogers, too, was as blunt as an instrument. “I think Australian rugby is in a really precarious position right now,” he said.

“People are starting to not care, and that’s probably the worst place you can be in as a professional organisation. When people don’t care, how do you garner support, sponsorship?

“Results will bring people back, and Eddie’s all about that. He’ll have you looking deep inside yourself to make sure you’re doing everything you can to make sure that if you lose, you won’t leave a stone unturned the next week. He’ll have some people doing some soul-searching when he comes in.”

Rogers said Jones would do a great job in the “short-term” but said Rugby Australia had to pay more attention to the grassroots.

He reflected on his son’s departure to the NRL, as the Queensland Reds left the door ajar for the Sharks to swoop in. “It’s (the disenchantment is) across the board,” he said.

“You only have to look at some of the posts when Eddie got announced. You look at some of the comments underneath it? ‘Australia have a rugby team’, it’s horrible.

“We’ve gone from a time 20-years-ago, where you couldn’t get a ticket to a Wallaby Test match. You couldn’t get one. They sold out in five minutes. And the Waratahs were 38-plus thousand tickets to matches. The Reds and Brumbies were on fire. Now we’re in this strange position.

“I personally believe RA have to do a better job at junior recruitment. All their best players in the GPS systems, your Kalyn Pongas, Joseph Suaaliis, Angus Crichtons; they’re getting bought by rugby league teams at 15.

“I remember 10 years ago, my son was playing A Grade colts at Bond Uni, absolutely braining them, he had a meeting with the Queensland Reds as a 17-year-old and they said to him, ‘You’re the best colt we have in the state, keep doing what you’re doing for a year and we’ll come back and see what you’re doing.’

“I said, ‘Give me your highlights video.’ I sent it to the Sharks, I sent it to the Waratahs; the Waratahs had a crack at him but the Sharks put a bigger offer on the table and signed him the next day.

“He didn’t really want to go rugby league, he was loving union, but they need to put a war chest aside for these good kids, put them in a system and hold on to them.”

Joe Roff was one of the many former Wallabies shocked when the news came through that Jones was back as the Australian coach.

It was at the Brumbies where Jones’ reputation went through the roof. Not that is was necessarily smooth sailing to begin with however.

“There were some trying times,” Roff admits.

“I think in his first year, the Brumbies were almost bottom of the table and there was a lot of soul-searching. But then his planning really came to the fore and everyone got on board with it and it created the momentum for a bit of a golden period for the Brumbies.”

The moment that won the Brumbies over

Roff said it was the night of their Super Rugby final loss to the Crusaders that cemented the players’ thoughts about Jones.

“Talking about his work-ethic, after the 2000 Super Rugby final, we lost by a point and we were all in the clubhouse drowning our sorrows and it was about 4 or 5am in the morning, and we just saw the lights come on in the administration,” Roff said.

“We were all sitting around with our beers, well lubricated, and we just saw the lights flick on, Eddie walk in with his laptop and his briefcase, go to his desk, sit down and start planning for the next year.

“It was one of those moments where everyone just sort of paused and there was this big silence of ‘this guy’s serious about the hurt of that loss.’

“Within 12 hours, he was going into review and preview to get better for the next year.”

It’s that work ethic, attention to detail and deep love of the game that has many across Australian rugby sharing the same belief that he’s the best coach they’ve played under.

“There’s a group of those guys, we all started out on a journey together, and many of us, myself included, think he’s the best coach that we’ve ever had,” Roff said.

“I mean, you see how driven and passionate, you’d think at some stage he himself would slow down but I don’t think that’s going to happen. He’s going to die on the field with a clipboard in his hand shouting to the forwards for a missing a clean-out. That’s honestly how he’s going to end his days I think. He loves it.”

Eales was 19 when he was invited out of colts to go on an Australian Barbarians tour and shared the field with Jones.

“We went down and we played Victoria and South Australia and the training for the trip constituted basically doing some lineouts in the car park,” Eales recalled.

“I remember Eddie, who was towards the end obviously of his career and I hadn’t even played an A Grade game at that point, in the car park and he was talking to me about a couple of things around technique with lineout. You could see some people have that inclination to coach even when they’re in the middle of their playing career. Maybe part of it was the teacher in him, but he was very good.”

Eales, of course, went on to win two World Cups and retired at the end of the 2001 Tri Nations, which was Jones’ first tournament in charge of the Wallabies.

“It was only four games that we were together for, but he was very considered, loved the game, had a deep interest in it and had a great attention to detail,” Eales said. “He was a great guy to talk to about rugby because he has such a deep interest in the game.”

Eales believes Jones can only have improved as a coach because the 62-year-old has relentlessly sought to develop.

“Experience is such a good thing,” Eales said. “Like as a player, you’re sort of limited by your experience. Physically you’re limited by how far you can take the experience as a player. Whereas as a coach, you’re only really limited by your capacity to talk and get around your passion for the game.

“I think Eddie like so many other coaches, and Dave was no different to this, just have a great passion for the game. If you learn as you go, which Eddie is a learner, your experience has to be a greater benefit to each team as you move on.”

‘Knew how to get a team culture going’

While Jones is known for his extraordinary work-ethic, the aspect that often goes unnoticed, or is reported negatively, like churning through coaches and flogging players at training, is his understanding of when to give players a break.

Flatley said Jones got “the best out of” him as a player because he knew which button to push, but also said he was “excellent company”.

“Eddie, I always found he knew how to get a team culture going,” he said.

“It was a high-effort working culture but everyone still had plenty of fun and plenty of laughs. He’s very quick-witted and putting shit on everyone, and doesn’t mind a little bit back occasionally in the right circumstance.”

While Matt Cockbain said Jones’ decision to take the Wallabies up to Arnhem Land was an example of the coach knowing when his players needed a break.

“One thing I really thought that he did well before the World Cup was take us up to Darwin,” Cockbain said.

“We had a camp up there in the heat and just sort of made that connection to with the Aboriginal community out at Mount Borradaile and camped.

“We did a bit of fishing and sort of corroboree and connected by the campfire with a few stories and I remember that well and that was a good experience.

“That’s the one Lote [Tuqiri] almost got eaten by a crocodile. That was a really good thing that he did for the Wallabies moving into that World Cup. It probably made us realize how much we were playing for everyone in that home World Cup.”

Jones’ return to the Wallabies, 18 years after he was sacked by Gary Flowers following a poor 2005, has been met with a deep sense of curiosity and intrigue from across the rugby landscape.

The fact that Rennie was sacked less than nine months out from the World Cup added to the element of surprise across the nation.

But by the players who once went into battle for him, it is a move that will pay off by Rugby Australia.

“He does have an intensity and a sense of purpose, and he will be not distracted by anything in the pursuit of World Cup success this year and it’s not that far away,” Roff said.

“If there was ever going to be success with a change of coach this close to the World Cup, he’s the only coach that could really make that happen.”

Sailor added: “I want to be proud of the Wallabies team. I look at them, there’s talent, they just don’t get it right and they’re not playing as a team and there’s not that belief they should have. I reckon Eddie Jones will instill that hope. I’ve got faith in Eddie Jones. I’m back on the rugby bandwagon full time because of Eddie Jones. I feel for Dave Rennie, but this is the right decision.”